Investor complaints dip at top MFs; Reliance sees biggest fall

The number of investor complaints has come down drastically at the country's top mutual funds, with Reliance MF leading the charts with the highest decline among the five biggest players.

The number of investor complaints has come down drastically at the country's top mutual funds, with Reliance MF leading the charts with the highest decline among the five biggest players.

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The total number of investor complaints received by the five biggest fund houses fell by 11,792 or 20% in the fiscal year 2012-13, the latest data compiled by the Assocation of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) shows.

While the decline was highest in absolute terms at 9,954 at Reliance MF, ICICI Pru Mutual Fund was the only fund house among top-five to see a higher number of compliants.

The complaints include those related to non-receipt of dividend or units, delayed dividend payments, discrepancies in account statements and investor details, wrong or unauthorised switch between schemes and excess charges.

HDFC MF is currently ranked as the country's biggest fund house in terms of assets under management, followed by Reliance MF, ICICI Pru, Birla Sunlife and UTI MF.

In percentage terms, the decline in number of complaints was highest for UTI Mutual Fund at 47%, followed by Reliance MF's 42%. ICICI Pru saw the numbers rise by 35% or 3,430 complaints during the fiscal.

The total number of complaints at these five companies in the fiscal 2012-13 stood at 46,522 as against 58,315 complaints in the previous year.

The number of investor folios, or investor accounts, also fell at all the five fund houses, with their collective number declining by over 15 lakh accounts to nearly 2.6 crore.

In terms of the complaints received against the total number of folios, UTI MF had the least number of complaints (0.03%), followed by HDFC MF (0.15%), Reliance MF (0.22%) Birla Sunlife (0.41%) and ICICI Pru (0.48%).

The absolute number of complaints was also lowest for UTI MF at 3,372 in 2012-13, followed by HDFC MF (7,606), Birla Sunlife (8,865), ICICI Pru (13,000) and Reliance MF (13,679).

UTI MF also commanded the highest number of investor folios in the fiscal 2012-13, followed by Reliance MF, HDFC MF, ICICI Pru and Birla Sunlife.